Unknown Artefact (or artifact) Community Thread - The Canonn

[Rauminen]

...

I'm not saying this is a particularly valid answer, but it's certainly one that makes more sense than Mayan symbols and strange interactions with canisters. We can make assumptions about the thing all day long, but we really don't actually know what it is or where it comes from. All we really know about it is that it's particularly harmful once you pick it up, and that it doesn't do much else until you do.

If that's essentially all we have to go off of then logically we would assume that its purpose probably has something to do with those mechanics. This can't exactly be a complicated answer because something in the game needs to trigger with this thing. If our answers are taking us away from the limits of what can be achieved with in-game interactions then we're probably pushing this in the wrong direction. FD isn't exactly going to jump into this thread and randomly congratulate us on a win for any of our existential theories, they haven't even commented in this discussion thus far. The answer to the UA has to involve the circumstances provided within the game itself, and it has to relate specifically to the UA in some clear and obvious way.

No offense intended guys, I just think some of you should consider being open to the idea of going back to basics.

Then forget the Galnet articles, forget everything. Just focus on the UA. It sounds like the single most corrosive piece of cargo in the game, that can't just be an accident. If the developers really wanted it to just corrode your ship for cool-factor I doubt we'd land up with something that causes serious malfunctions this quickly. It can't just be a random element to enhance the lore, at this point they're practically screaming to draw our attention to it. You know, unless tales of its potency have been greatly exaggerated.

No offense, but if you want to try this, find one and do so (= normal answer in this thread of guys and gals who, cumulatively, have spent several thousand hours just searching for the damn thing)

While I understand and in fact completely agree the _way_ of your reasoning, I disagree with the results.

That is exactly the kind of thinking we need now, however..... The only way to "let it destroy" the ship, is to let it eat the powerplant to 0%, and do the test BEFORE CQC comes out - you see the flaw, right?

Otherwise, the toxic waste container does exactly the same. I don't think destroying your ship is the reason for the existence of toxic waste containers.

- - - Updated - - -

Honestly, I assume the simple thing to do with the artefact is deliver it to a specific station. The rate of corrosion is to make it more difficult to deliver to the proper location. Nothing more. Makes it more of a challenge, since if only a single station is the place to take it, an artefact bearer is essentially left looking for a needle in a haystack, all the while their ship's systems keep degrading.

^^^ This. Indeed.

 

[LordZoltan]

Same here. I honestly think it's a sign of things to come, less than a tangible mystery right now. But I'm also keen to support those who still wish to hunt and explore.

Like I said, I won't be sad if no one uses the server, but it is there incase some one wants to use it *cough*BiscuitBarrel*cough*
OhGodIHaveCerberusPlague

After countless 100s of hours the UA gods have deemed me not worthy to find or carry (nor am I qualified to add theories) so I'll do my best as a community janitor of sorts. If I can help the real heroes of our mythos perhaps the history books will remember me

They certainly will

 

[Szyslak22]

Now it may be that they say it's simple because they designed the quest and thus know everything about it, however I think we are in a similar situation to that whole GTX Titan Black graphics card thing they did a while ago. The answer for that Titan Black puzzle (the name of the system the cards were being sold at) was really simple, and FDEV even said it was really simple.

It wasn't simple, it was a totally random, rarely traveled system within 200 ly of Godel Ring. After all the work put in to decoding that puzzle, it was totally random. Incredibly frustrating really. Didn't stop FDEV from watching the thread and silently laughing about all the theories, much as they are doing right now. Why would they give hints when they get so much enjoyment from watching the struggle?

 

[slartybartfast]

Just got to Timocani and found SSS "whehey" i thought convoy here i come, nope it was a wing of 7 conda's and cobra's all wanted. i ran away.
If anyone wants to form a wing in or near Timocani and do some UA hunting come find me i am in open.

 

[Julio Montega]

Just got to Timocani and found SSS "whehey" i thought convoy here i come, nope it was a wing of 7 conda's and cobra's all wanted. i ran away.
If anyone wants to form a wing in or near Timocani and do some UA hunting come find me i am in open.

Oh timocani... never got lucky there.
Just be sure not to be wanted or to switch PP factions while doing so, otherwise enforcers out of nowhere will bug you,
no matter how far out you are...

 

[Hoboner]

Just got to Timocani and found SSS "whehey" i thought convoy here i come, nope it was a wing of 7 conda's and cobra's all wanted. i ran away.
If anyone wants to form a wing in or near Timocani and do some UA hunting come find me i am in open.

This was my struggle ALL last night, haha. I'm just around the corner from Timocani myself at the moment (also in open). I'm down to wing-up and hunt for a few hours! CMDR Hoboner in-game. I'll be on in about 30-45 minutes.

 

[Arcanonn]

Not me, not going anywhere near it. Beginning to think this entire exercise fruitless. May just continue on my own

Beginning to think?....where have you been?

Upshot is FD have told us its solvable. Their other comments seem to rule out anything but the fact that we cannot see the wood for the trees.

It's going to take a eureka moment......

 

[moose666]

Any of the UA holders got an Alioth permit?

If it is Thargoid, maybe its looking through our system/planet names to find one that it would recognise.

The name it could be looking for is the name of the ship that came to them in the events of FFE, namely, Argent's quest.

So my sugguestion would be to take it to Argent's claim in Alioth.

 

[Macros Black]

Will sell the UA at Li Qing Jao in SOL (Whales, Dolphins, Earth, "Overthinkin"'n'stuff), if and when I get one. Supposedly I've been blessed with 2 lucky charms tomorrow @ Timocani so fingers crossed

Edit: And according to Delmonte, I'll just have to wait for a woman called Patience then it'll all come together.

Fly dangerous

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Oh timocani... never got lucky there.
Just be sure not to be wanted or to switch PP factions while doing so, otherwise enforcers out of nowhere will bug you,
no matter how far out you are...

It's not so bad, only been interdicted 3 times in Timocani in 5-6 hours (you just shoot one pesky little ship, and suddenly you're wanted, whats that about?)

 

[Iori]

Have you guys tried to do a wake scanner with it?

 

[Amazing Mr. X]

No offense, but if you want to try this, find one and do so (= normal answer in this thread of guys and gals who, cumulatively, have spent several thousand hours just searching for the damn thing)

While I understand and in fact completely agree the _way_ of your reasoning, I disagree with the results.

That is exactly the kind of thinking we need now, however..... The only way to "let it destroy" the ship, is to let it eat the powerplant to 0%, and do the test BEFORE CQC comes out - you see the flaw, right?

Otherwise, the toxic waste container does exactly the same. I don't think destroying your ship is the reason for the existence of toxic waste containers.

I assume you're talking about the Power Plant's incoming re-balancing? That's a fair point, assuming there's not a specific module the UA wants or needs to damage or destroy. Still, future plans for changes certainly do give us hints at what the UA can't be used for.

Honestly, I assume the simple thing to do with the artefact is deliver it to a specific station. The rate of corrosion is to make it more difficult to deliver to the proper location. Nothing more. Makes it more of a challenge, since if only a single station is the place to take it, an artefact bearer is essentially left looking for a needle in a haystack, all the while their ship's systems keep degrading.

^^^ This. Indeed.

I'm a bit far from civilization right now, so I can't exactly stop everything and find a UA even if I really wanted to. That said, I'm not 100% committed to ship destruction, I'm just trying to throw out ideas that follow at least some kind of gameplay logic.

That said, this station-delivering "needle in a haystack" idea has some merit. The big search for the Titan Black certainly comes to mind, so that theory can't ever be completely discounted. My problem with it is that it doesn't seem to align with the UA's apparent scarcity. Frontier can't expect us to deliver a UA to a random station if no single group of players will ever have enough to find the correct one through any form of trial and error.

We have to assume that Frontier is fully aware that their game includes 400 billion star systems, and that the player base isn't large enough to touch them all in any kind of reasonable span of time. So the solution has to have respect for the immense scale of the galaxy. They can't just be expecting us to spend an effectively infinite number of hours searching the largest virtual haystack in all of gaming. The solution needs to be more immediate, either something that happens practically anywhere through instancing or something that happens in one specifically named place that we're being pointed to.

Maybe it has to do with how UAs spawn and where the convoys are going. Maybe we're just fundamentally doing something wrong by collecting them like we are. Is it possible for us to follow these convoys anywhere? Do they flee to any particular places of note? Is there anything unique about them?

 

[rizal72]

UPDATE:

1) Nick Powell decided to keep the UA safe until Kingdom come. His UA will be the Sacrificial Lamb of the ultimate test: "let the UA expire with a ship close to its mouth, with FSD charged and ready". Date to be decided. I've offered myself to pilot the ship that will be fired into Whichspace, eventually.
2) This means that we need another UA to perform the very easy test of a wing of four (massive?) ships close to the UA, to try to cancel the purrs completely. I still think that 5 could be the magic number, though.
3) After this test, would be nice to try the "3 wings of 4 ships" close to the UA, to exactly reproduce the pods structure. Who knows.
4) I agree since day one with who is suggesting to let the UA eat your ships until the end, but I understand the reticence of the Holders (capitalyzed for respect).
5) CMDR DelMonte is Hunting a new UA to gently donate it for our cause: he'll eventually win a weekend to Italy, for him and wife, if succeed
6) about the canister's lights: I've noticed them a thousand years ago, in the first thread, and my post was soon forgotten.
7) And yes: the UA really resembles an "onionhead"! From the name, at least...
That can explain why each UA Holder falls under the influx of the "My precious" allucination

 

[Derthek]

Have you guys tried to do a wake scanner with it?

Yesssssir

 

[Popov Le Magnifique]

I'm in Bast, on Derthek's private group, a lot of SSS. One Hafnium convoy. Nothing else to report.

 

[Zenith]

Still working on my "Quest for Raxxla",
i'm a bit lost...
I counted every letter in the fabled "Raxxla" and substituted the name with the number of position:

R A X X L A
18 1 24 24 12 1

Now astrologers do not use an X/Y/Z coordinate-system,
and i highly doubt, that a three or four digit relative position in each axis is enough to
navigate the galaxymap of E: D.

But they use another system consiting of three values per variable to locate an object,
the "Right ascension", short RA and the declination, short dec.

In this system the name Raxxla and the allocated numbers indicate a position at:

RA 18h 1min 24sec
dec +/-24° 12' 1"

My google skills however do not yield a result in a named system,
can anyone point me on how to navigate to those 2 possible locations?
I am not sure even, if those coordinates take the earth as the origin or maybe SagA*?
Any ideas?

The reason i post this, is because of FFE lore, there is a system with a "Hypergate" rumored to exist, and very hostile human military remnants guarding it.
Maybe you got the key and i got a trace?
I do rule out Polaris out as an option, simply because lacking accessability,
and some UA owners already tried going there with no success (maybe due to a bug?).

Edit:
I tinkered around with the "aladin" star atlas and found a star very close to the coordinates:
18 01 24.082 -24 12 2.26

In the positive "spectrum" or what you call it is a very bright white star close to the coordinates,
which too might be a suitable target (like Polaris is a very bright F-Type).

Using Sky-Map.org, I found 2 candidates based on those coordinates...

+dec: HD 164730 - http://server7.sky-map.org/starview?object_type=1&object_id=476393
This exists in game as HIP 88264, a K0 system.
-dec: USNOA2 0600-30015639 - http://server7.sky-map.org/starview?object_type=1&object_id=633995415
I can't find this one.

 

[Julio Montega]

Using Sky-Map.org, I found 2 candidates based on those coordinates...

+dec: HD 164730 - http://server7.sky-map.org/starview?object_type=1&object_id=476393
This exists in game as HIP 88264, a K0 system.
-dec: USNOA2 0600-30015639 - http://server7.sky-map.org/starview?object_type=1&object_id=633995415
I can't find this one.

Oh yes!
Thank you very much. Fitting Asp for going there.
Now!

 

[slartybartfast]

This was my struggle ALL last night, haha. I'm just around the corner from Timocani myself at the moment (also in open). I'm down to wing-up and hunt for a few hours! CMDR Hoboner in-game. I'll be on in about 30-45 minutes.

cool see you here

 

[Derthek]

I'm in Bast, on Derthek's private group, a lot of SSS. One Hafnium convoy. Nothing else to report.

Haha "OUR" private group come on haha

 

[knowles2]

So is everyone in the private one now?

Nope and I have no intention to do it. I intend to keep my pledge of always playing in the open.

If anyone want gold trap SSS go to Jita Ten that all I was getting in that system.

 

[Popov Le Magnifique]

Haha "OUR" private group come on haha

You're right! So in our group (hehe), I've come across the 2nd Hafnium convoy (3rd T9 convoy), among A LOT of SSS, sometimes doubled. Anyone wanna join me?